Stung (2015)

Are you afraid of wasps? In July 2015, I thought I wasn’t, till I saw a 7 foot tall one, then I changed my mind.

Directing this 87 minute comedy/horror/romance is Benni Diez.

Some of the cast is: Matt O’Leary as Paul, Jessica Cook as Julia, Clifton Collins Jr. as Sydney, Lance Henriksen as Caruthers and Eve Slatner as Mrs. Perch.

Julia and Paul are catering a fancy party that Mrs. Perch is throwing at her country villa. Everything looks great and the guests are enjoying the evening, that is until some unexpected guests show up. A local species of wasp that lays its eggs in other insects has mutated and is looking for new places to lay their eggs. Now that the evening has turned deadly, Julia and Paul have to find a way to survive this garden party gone wrong, before they get… stung.

After catching the trailer for this one I tried not to get my hopes up, but I really wanted to catch it. To my surprise, I wasn’t disappointed, this turned out to be worth watching.

This killer creature flick was written by Adam Aresty. The story is your typical humans against mutated monsters, but with a bit of a slow brewing romance of an unlikely couple mixed in to spice things up. The story has a good mix of comedy and horror filled action going on throughout it.

The opening of the film caught my attention and held it till the very end with no trouble whatsoever. Now, whenever you’re watching a film about 7 foot killer wasps you have to remember you can’t take things too seriously. I mean, when was the last time you saw a 7 foot wasp? Exactly, (luckily) I haven’t either! So, keeping that in mind, I think you’re really going to dig this one. Once the story takes off this flick turns into a run for your life bloody, and yeah, even gory at times cool flick with quite a bit of dark humor mixed in. You have people being picked off by small insects that are quickly becoming a larger and larger problem. One of the many things I liked about this one is it reminded me, and kind of had that same feel of, the old black and white ant movie Them (1954), which is to this day is a classic in my eyes.

The blending of practical and CGI effects worked great together. Josh Head (animatronics) and Inga Ross (special effects) laid down a bloody good base for Peter Hacker (digital effects) to come in and fill in the gaps in the scenes. Some of the CGI didn’t always blend in very well but most of the time it was really smooth and you didn’t even notice it.

The cast was awesome! Henriksen and Collins Jr. are two names that are always great to see in a cast line up. Henriksen brings his usual character charm to the role and Collins Jr. brought us a really good creepy and conniving character to stir the pot. O’Leary’s timing was great and he turned out to be a really good addition to the cast.